Tuscan Pine Nut Cookies with Rosemary (Savory Shortbread)

by Cate on March 24, 2009

Can you believe it has been four years since I started Sweetnicks? It doesn’t seem like it’s been that long already … that I started this site when Nick was only two-years-old. I can barely remember back that far. When I started this site, I felt like I knew most of the regular food bloggers out there … we all congregated on a few online watering holes and visited each other’s sites regularly and were a small, few hundred strong group. Flash forward four years and the amount of food bloggers has grown exponentially … I still check in and visit my favorites from the beginning, and have added a few new ones to the mix, but now it’s hard to keep up with everyone … there’s so many!

Recently though, I happened upon Stacey’s Snacks, another New Jersey-based food blogger, and took a spin through some of her recent posts. Once I spied the recipe for the savory shortbread, I knew I was in trouble. Both my mom and I are big fans of shortbread, and with its buttery, crumbly, soft and decadently rich taste, how can you go wrong? And truth be told, it literally takes just minutes to assemble a shortbread recipe and get it into the oven. It’s crazysimple to make, and Stacey’s recipe for a savory version is no exception.

Although pine nuts (pignoli nuts) tend to be a little pricey, I had some leftover from the Pea Pesto Salad that I made for Madeline’s birthday party last month. If you don’t happen to have any on hand, or want to make it a little more budget-friendly, I bet pecans or even chopped walnuts would taste just as good. I did pause a little when I saw the addition of confectioner’s sugar into a savory shortbread, but I promise it all works out in the end.

Have all of your ingredients ready to go. Preheat oven at 350. In a heavy saucepan, on medium heat, heat your butter stick until melted. Now add your powdered sugar, toasted pine nuts and chopped rosemary. Mix well. Now add your flour last and stir to make a ball of dough. Spread your dough in a small baking dish or pan and spread out as evenly as possible (no greasing necessary, this is a buttery dough).

Bake for about 20 minutes until edges are firm and starting to brown. Let cool in pan about 3 minutes before carefully slicing into wedges. After 15 minutes, lift cookies out of pan with a small spatula and cool completely on racks. This is important. The dough needs enough time to cool down and harden, otherwise when you slice them, they will fall apart.

I’ve learned time flies at the speed of sound. Scary sometimes, isn’t it? Lovely combo of flavors in this. I’ve experimented with them in muffins and they’re heavenly. I’ll have to sample them in cookies now. No sharing, of course.

love the recipe for the shortbread. I am going to bake them and take them into the place where I volunteer. I’m sure everyone will love them too.

A couple of questions though, for us Europeans (I am writing from London, England); how much is a stick of butter? Also, is powdered confectioners sugar the same thing used to make icing, for us just “icing sugar”. Sorry for pesky questions!